Beer Me!

Independent brew lovers who visit the Grandview Heights area might think they’ve died and gone to beer heaven.

At least four craft brewers call the neighborhood home: Smokehouse Brewing Company (formerly known as Barley’s Smokehouse & Brewpub), Four String Brewing Co., Sideswipe Brewing and Zauber Brewing. And Grandview Yard is home to Grandview Digfest, a celebration of craft beer as well as local micro-distilleries and Ohio wines and liquors held annually in June.

Laura Oldham of Starburst Media, who has helped Destination Grandview and the Grandview Area Chamber of Commerce plan Digfest for several years, wanted to do more for the local beer scene. Together Oldham, her husband, Doug, and Jamie Gentry created the Grandview Craft Beer Alliance, a nonprofit organization that promotes local beer bars and bottle shops.

“It’s non-member based. No one has to pay,” Oldham says. “We want to raise the profile of the Tri-Village area as a great destination for craft beer.”

The Alliance’s “coming out” party, so to speak, was the Grandview High Gravity Hullabaloo, which took place Feb. 1. The event, held in a warehouse near the Grandview Yard, billed itself as “a celebration of strong beers and smoked meats.” The Hullabaloo featured beer 8 percent alcohol and above from 10 local breweries; food from Smokehouse, Matt the Miller’s Tavern and Honeykiss Bakery; and classic arcade games from Arcade Super Awesome.

Smokehouse provided a whole roasted pig – and Smokehouse founder Lenny Kolada was astonished to see the animal stripped clean in short order.

“It was crazy,” Kolada says. “These are small slider-type sandwiches and that hog was stripped down to pure bone within an hour. It says something about how good our barbecue is and how good it goes with craft beer.”

With 16 years of brewing at the smokehouse on Dublin Road under his belt, Kolada is one of the long-timers in the trendy craft beer scene.

“It was always cool, but (we were doing it) before everybody knew it was cool,” Kolada says. “I think that we’re perceived as one of the pioneers here in Columbus and I like to think that people compare a lot of the new offerings to what we’ve been doing for a long time. Having said that, we also try to come up with new beer styles. We don’t just rely on the old standards.”

Kolada’s new favorites among the Smokehouse drink menu are Basin Street Wheat, a wheat wine, and Bourbon Street Wheat, which is matured in a barrel from Woodford Reserve Distillery.

“We like to say what we do around here is part art, part science and part magic, and when all of those things come together, you’ve got an adventure in your kind of beer,” Kolada says.

In addition to participating in the Hullabaloo and regularly at Digfest, Smokehouse hosts its own annual event – the Mini Real Ale Fest, this year scheduled for June 7. Attendees can drink unfiltered, unpasteurized beer straight from the firkin – a wooden cask – without added carbon dioxide, from Smokehouse and other craft brewers.

Kolada is acquainted and friendly with the faces behind the newer breweries in town.

“You know, the more the merrier. We’re a very collaborative industry,” he says. “I know Geoff Towne (of Zauber Brewing) and Dan Cochran (of Four String Brewing Co.). They’re great guys and they’re doing great things. Of course, not as great as us, but it’s really cool that in this day and age, you can get a really fresh, handcrafted product right in your neighborhood.”

Towne, whose taproom on West Fifth Avenue opened Jan. 4, selected his location based on its proximity to the quickly growing Grandview Yard – particularly the condos and apartments.

“Grandview in general is the heart of our target market,” Towne says. “Lifestyle-wise it’s a great place to be. It’s along the 315 corridor, which is important for the majority of our target market.”

Another benefit of his location over one in the Short North or German Village? Parking.

“We have more parking than seats with the Goodwill Columbus lot next door as after-hours parking. If you can find a seat in the bar, I can guarantee you a parking spot,” Towne says.

Cochran, a musician, had been brewing at home since 1994 and started leasing the building that houses the Four String Brewing Co. about three years ago.

“Craft beer and local in general are becoming so popular that the response has been pretty incredible the last two years. We’ve been growing leaps and bounds,” Cochran says.

He chose the location on West Sixth Avenue for his taproom and brewery because he lives nearby.

“I live in Grandview and I wanted someplace that was close to home … and I was fortunate enough to find one,” Cochran says.

The brewery is expanding its line of canned beers to its Brass Knuckle Pale Ale and Big Star White IPA and is branching out to the Akron and Canton markets with draft and canned beers. Four String participated in the Hullabaloo and will spend its third year at Digfest in June.

“Things are going great,” Cochran says. “We couldn’t ask for more.”

Sideswipe Brewing, founded by martial artist Craig O’Herron in November 2013, doesn’t have its own taproom yet, but its brews are already carried in more than 35 locations around central Ohio. O’Herron and his crew brew their three varieties of beer – Elegant Hoodlum Stout, Fisticuffs IPA and Coop Looter, a saison – in a location south of Grandview off of McKinley Avenue.

None of Sideswipe’s brews was strong enough for it to participate in the Hullabaloo, but O’Herron says he’s interested in participating in this year’s Digfest.

O’Herron began homebrewing beer nine years ago while he was spending a lot of time in Asia, “where the beer was not very good,” he says. He thinks people are drawn to craft beer for the same reason he was.

“I think people were looking for more options in their beer choices. You can’t drink the same old beer every day and not what to try something new.”

When new brewers pop up, Oldham and the Alliance intend to be there to support them. The Alliance is planning a Maifest for 3-8 p.m. May 10 in the parking lot of Goodwill Columbus at 1331 Edgehill Rd. For more information, visit www.grandviewcraftbeer.com.